


for fun and profit

by notavodkashot



Series: FFXV one shots [10]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Ardyn fucks up everything, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Canon Events, M/M, Non-Sequential Storytelling, Shapeshifting, you know the ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 15:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: The truth is, Cor is... complicated.





	for fun and profit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [temporalDecay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/gifts).



> Based on a prompt by [temporalDecay](http://temporaldecay.tumblr.com), which in turn was based on a prompt in the anon meme, which I am entirely too lazy to go find.
> 
> Prompt is in the end notes, because spoilers.
> 
> With special thanks to infidusfiles and ninemoons42 for brainstorming and screaming in horrified delight sessions.

* * *

 

 

v.

 

Cor isn't there, to see dawn break anew.

Cor isn't anywhere, hasn't been seen by anyone, but that's not going to stop Prompto from looking for him.

He's lost too many people already, to give up so easily. Besides, if anyone deserves to enjoy the sunlight, it's Cor.

At least, Prompto thinks so.

 

 

* * *

 

 

iv.

 

“Whoa,” Prompto says, staring at the pair of kukris that fall from the cloud of scourge dust as the daemon dies with a screech that almost sounds like a cackle to their keyed up senses. “That's new.”

The blades clatter loudly onto the cracked pavement, but they don't shatter.

They don't stop too long to wonder about it, though. Ignis finds them more than suitable and switches them for the battered dagger set he's got, and then they're heading to the Citadel, to face Ardyn once and for all.

There's nothing else to do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

iii.

 

“You've improved,” Cor says, watching Prompto slide his shirt back on, lips twitching sideways into the vague impression of a smile. “Again.”

Prompto laughs, short and sharp, and rubs his wrist against his nose.

“Kinda had to,” he muses, smile wry. “Not really in the mood to die, yet.”

Cor shrugs.

“Good,” he mutters, but doesn't fight it when Prompto crawls over to sit by his side, chin hooked on his shoulder. “I heard you ran into Ardyn in Leide.”

Prompto's expression turns sour.

“He turned into Aranea and made a mess of things,” he explains, face closed off with cool, profound anger that doesn't seem so strange on his features these days. “Lost four people, good people, because of that stunt.”

“Would have lost more, if you hadn't been there,” Cor points out, and after a moment, reaches a hand to finger the short hair fanning behind Prompto's neck. “You have an uncanny talent to root the bastard out. I hear even Gladio got fooled, a while back. Ignis, too.”

“I'm probably just used to it,” Prompto says, tilting his head back into Cor's fingers, eyes half-lidded. “He thinks he has you and he gets smug. It's like he can't help himself. It's pretty obvious once you know what to look for, but it's not the kind of thing you can explain.”

“The passwords and the double blinds, they've helped at least,” Cor offers, almost placating, and Prompto tilts his head down to press a kiss on a broad, scarred shoulder. “He could do a lot more damage if he wanted to.”

“The thing with Ardyn,” Prompto says, in the tones of an expert of the matter, which he supposes he is, at this point, considering the sheer amount of times he's found himself staring at the face of Ardyn's fuckery and trying desperately to save people from it, “is that he doesn't just want to win. He wants you to _know_ he's won. He's a bastard like that.”

Cor hums his agreement in the back of his throat. They've still got a few hours to call their own, before they're supposed to meet a party of Glaives and help them escort a pack of fighting-hopeful to the bootcamp in Hammerhead.

They've got better ways to pass them, than musing on Ardyn's plans.

 

 

* * *

 

 

ii.

 

He's not afraid.

He wasn't afraid, with his lungs collapsing on themselves, ribs splintered on the way in and shattered on the way out, holding himself up with pure heartbroken betrayal. He'd stared at Luche in the face and realized quite clearly that he was going to die, and he wasn't afraid, then.

He wasn't afraid, lying on the cold, hard ground, singled out in judgment by the spirits of Kings of Old, hallowed guardians of nothing at all. He'd grasped for breath, in that sliver of time outside time, and realized bitterly that he was going to die, and he wasn't afraid, then.

He wasn't afraid, skin crackling, veins bursting, bones creaking, as the power surged and stayed, even as he placed the Ring in the princess' hands and sent her on her way. He'd felt the weight of Glauca's sword in Drautos' hands, a relentless force against the frail-seeming blades in his hands, and realized furiously that he was going to die, and he wasn't afraid, then.

So now, sitting on the ground, waiting for the damning rays of dawn, lulled to sleep by a traitor's wet, raspy breath, he is not afraid. He is dead already, he realizes, and it's only a matter for his body to catch up. He'd like to say, with that insidious tendency he has, to try and see the bright side in everything, that it is not a bad way to go. But it is, and he knows it, and he's so tired of trying, so sick of lying, that he'd be angry instead, if he still had the energy for it.

So he sits there, skin flaking into ash, so dead it doesn't even hurt, and waits for light to burst bright in the horizon.

“Rule well, young King,” he says, because he might as well say something, something poignant and grand and not the ball of bitter, vicious hate lodged in his throat.

“Oh, he'll _try_.”

Nyx startles at the sound of that voice, even and deadpan and painfully, viciously familiar; Cor the Immortal stands by the edge of the street, walking out of the shadows and the ghost of debris with the unhurried air of someone who has nowhere else to be, but where he is.

“He'll try, I'll grant you that,” Cor says, and it sounds like Cor, only it doesn't. The voice is right, but the tone isn't, lofty and airy and shapeless, whereas Nyx has always known Cor to be cold and solid and unrepentant. There's a bitter note, in that tone, but it's the wrong kind of bitter, and Nyx would know, he's spent years learning to enjoy variations of it.“They _always_ try, or make an effort to at least prettend to try. It's what Kings do, you see. Well, that... and die, of course.”

“Cor,” Titus says, before Nyx can force himself back to his feet. “Of course you're here.”

“Well of course I am,” Cor replies, and there's that slippery tone again, burning worse than the ash eating through Nyx's lungs. Cor walks past him, though, all his attention focused on the man beneath the cracked armor, trying to stand and having about as much success as Nyx is. “You had one job, General. One measly, simple job, and you had to _fuck it up_ , didn't you?”

Nyx stares as Cor raises his hand, the gesture familiar and painful, and summons his sword out of crystals and nothing. He watches, dumbfounded, as Cor cuts Titus down like he's batting down a fly, but that's not what has his mind whirling about in circles.

The King is dead.

The King's magic is dead as well.

The only reason the kukris return to his hands, their weight familiar and almost comforting, is because the Ring put a spark of magic in him, beating slowly like a second heartbeat beneath his sternum. It's that same spark that's feeding the fire slowly eating through his skin, filling up his lungs with soot and ash, and heralding his death as the sun begins the slow crawl on the horizon.

Cor didn't get that chance. Couldn't have. Couldn't.

“Where's Cor?” Nyx asks, trying to keep his voice even as he ignores the shrieking of dying nerves as he forces himself upright, staggering back to his feet and another fight he's not quite sure he can win.

The man who is not Cor, cannot be Cor, because Cor is... is... He stares at him, blinking.

“Well, he's dead of course,” he replies, smile easy and taunting like Cor's sneers never were. His eyes narrow, bleeding golden for a moment, before they're back to very familiar blue. “He's been rotting in the same ditch I left him, some thirty years ago, my dear, so you needn't sound so heartbroken about it.”

Nyx stumbles.

He hadn't meant to, but he does, and he clenches his fists, trying to keep his hands from shaking, as he stares. He has one shot. One shot. The sun is burning in the distance and his blood is boiling in his veins, literally boiling, he can feel the flesh shriver up, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter because-

He sinks the kukris into Cor's chest, going for a frontal assault for the sake of time he doesn't have, and because it's a desperate, hopeless attempt he doesn't really expect to work, but that he knows he has to try anyway. The blades sink in past muscle and bone with frightening ease, and he's left standing face to face with Cor and his lack of reaction.

“You were always very amusing, my dear, I'll grant you that,” Cor replies, and there's the smile as Nyx flinches when a hand reaches out to hold his face, tilting it up. “You were truly a highlight in this particular farse, I must say. I was mad at you, you see, for a moment there. Years, decades... nay, _centuries_ of work, put in jeopardy when you refused to bow out graciously and take the death I had so carefully set up for you.” Nyx snarls, as if to bite the thumb gently rubbing his lips. “And I put so much thought into that death, too, because I've grown so fond of you. A hero's death, the likes you always wanted! Thrown away because you'd rather die consumed by the self-righteous judgment of the Old Kings! I've known them, the Lucii, each one a worst bastard than the last, lashing out on those who lust after their precious magic. To see you die consumed by greed for that shiny trinket, oh dear love, I was _very_ mad.”

Nyx twists the blades. They're still deep in Cor's chest, but there's no blood coming out, no pulse under his ribs even though his hand is warm and familiar, every callous just in the right place. There's resistance when Nyx twists his wrists, trying to rent and tear, but the flesh beneath yields almost like it's not there at all.

“But then I should have more faith in you, shouldn't I?” Cor says, and Nyx gives into the urge and bites his thumb, just as his knees buckle because his bones are crumbling where he stands. Cor doesn't bleed. There's no bone creaking under Nyx's teeth. And worst of all, Cor wraps an arm around his waist, hoisting him up, keeping him in place. “You put up such a fantastic spectacle, a sublime performace from beginning to the end.”

Nyx feels himself fading, aching, rage and heartbreak and frustration being swallowed up by the fact he's run out of time. He's run out of time.

“Fuck you,” he hisses, releasing Cor's thumb to spit out the words at him, and honestly, he always kind of suspected those were going to be his last words.

Libertus certainly teases him about it.

Teased.

“Now, now, this is hardly the time,” Cor replies, eyebrows arched. “See, I don't like this ending of yours. You worked so hard, you were such a good sport through it all, and to let the Old Kings keep you seems... well, it lacks dramatic tension!” Cor pushes him away, putting some distance between them, though Nyx's fingers are cramping and still holding onto the handles of his weapons, for all the good they seem to do. “And now you know all my secrets, too. Who says they won't use that, when they claim you? It's what they do, you know? Use everything and sacrifice everyone to the altar of their miserable, dying gods.” Cor sighs. “No. No, I think, we shall come up with a better ending, now.”

Nyx doesn't feel the sword slide into him. It's a small bleep in the burning agony of the Ring's magic claiming its price.

But he feels the ooze of darkness sinking into him, snuffing out the light, leaking through his pores. He screams and it comes gushing out, tainted madness that takes every speck left of him and twists it into something else, something that gives into the murderous rage boiling beneath the adrenaline and the bruised loyalty.

The last thing Nyx sees is the face beneath Cor's, and his last thought is of him, thought not the kind of thought he'd have expected.

 

 

* * *

 

 

i.

 

“You came back.”

Cor startles at the sound, more than the words. He's too tired to register the words properly, anyway. He startles and flinches and for a moment he thinks the cave will follow him now, screams of the dying echoing between his ears and the Blademaster's taunting forever writhing on his skin.

He stares at the man, tall and wide and looming. There's something about him that echoes the old magic in the caves, something ancient and terrible that makes his skin crawl and his stomach turn.

“No one's supposed to come back at all,” the man insists, frowning as if trying to think of the answer to a riddle. “Unless of course you've been sent back, found wanting but still worth letting live... What an extraordinary young man you are, indeed.”

Cor opens his mouth to demand answers to questions he hasn't finished coming up with.

He's dead before he hits the ground.

 

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt was:
> 
> "Write me dark fic, Rie. The kind that lingers." and "No one's ever seen Cor and Ardyn in the same place at the same time, so what if Cor is actually Ardyn's longest running con?"
> 
> I tried my best, and also added my OTP and Fi's pet favorite ship, because why the hell not.
> 
>  
> 
> Come hang out on [DW](https://notavodkashot.dreamwidth.org/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/notavodkashot), if you'd like.


End file.
